Delta State to reform government-owned media houses

Delta State Commissioner for Information, Mr. Patrick Ukah, has said that a lot of reforms are going on to reposition the state-owned media houses. Uka told journalists at a media briefing recently in Asaba that The Pointer newspaper and Delta Broadcasting Service, Warri and Asaba, were undergoing reforms, adding that efforts have been put in place to ensure the media houses rank among equals.

On The Pointer titles, the commissioner said government has designed a strategy that will refocus the company and position it to be commercially viable, adding that the programme was anchored on more effective distribution and circulation of the titles and improvement in the editorial content.

According to him, “the ministry has put machinery in place to gain heavy presence of the titles across the country and create a larger market in terms of sales and advertisement patronage”. In the same vein, the commissioner said all efforts were being made to upgrade the Delta Broadcasting Service (DBS) stations in Warri and Asaba to full digitization.

He said a report of engineers asked to look into the challenges of the DBS stations had been submitted adding that at present, the government was looking While saying that the DBS stations now transmit on channels 115 and 113 on Star-Times including, CTL and UHF, and to keep the stations on air, the ministry planned phased short and long term solutions implementation.

He pointed out that since the inception of the present administration; the ministry has committed itself in articulating and adequately publicizing the programmes and activities of government within the context of the SMART Agenda. Mr. Ukah said apart from making the policy thrust of government (SMART Agenda) known, the ministry was able to articulate all projects and programmes of various MDAs.

According to him, “at present, the government has energized efforts towards implementing reforms and strategies to make the outfits ranked among the best in the country”.

Other achievements of the ministry, Mr. Ukah said is the construction of the Nigerian Union of Journalists (NUJ) state secretariat building in Asaba, hosting of the 46th meeting of the National Council on Information, rebranding of the state’s identity among other things.